Category: IT Management

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Remote applications, virtual desktops and hosted QuickBooks

Cloud computing and SaaS applications are all the rage, and businesses are finding tremendous benefits with the mobility and managed service these models provide.  On the other hand, there also continues to be huge reliance on the desktop computer and the software running on it. From basic productivity tools to more advanced business solutions, desktop-based software and locally installed applications remain in favor for the vast majority of businesses around the country.  Adoption of web-based solutions is certainly increasing, but the need for tried-and-true business applications that were traditionally installed and managed directly on the PC or local network doesn’t seem to be going away. At least part of the reason for this is the functionality and performance these applications deliver.  Another factor is that hosting and remote access solutions have matured to the point where hosting applications is just as “mainstream” (and often more useful to the business) as using a SaaS solution. Managed application hosting models have made solutions like Microsoft Office and QuickBooks desktop editions available anytime, anywhere and using just about any device. I call hosting the best “tweener” solution available, because users can have the functionality they need and still get fully managed, on-demand service.

Back when a few businesses started operating as Application Service Providers (ASPs), there were a limited number of realistic approaches available for building the platform to deliver desktop applications.  Many application hosting offerings grew somewhat like a fungus from the internal Citrix Metaframe and terminal service set ups performed by IT service companies.   A lot of these companies didn’t start out to provide application hosting services; they simply found it to be more efficient and profitable than trying to manage all that hardware and software at the client site.

Over the years, a variety of solutions have been introduced to ease the burdens of implementation and management of desktop applications on centralized platforms, but most of them were designed more for enterprise deployment rather than as the basis for a generalized service offering.  Microsoft’s Remote App and Remote Desktop services, Microsoft and Citrix and Dell (Quest) app virtualization/management/publishing, even streaming and “containerized” applications… there are quite a few options out there and, in some circumstances, they can work pretty well.   What has kept them from working out REALLY well, however, is the cost and complexity of deploying these solutions.  From printing problems to user device support to simply allowing a user to gracefully reset their connection when it gets stuck…  application and desktop delivery platforms can be very difficult to set up and manage.

My team works with a number of solutions which address these aspects of application and desktop delivery, bringing the functionality to a level where small businesses and their IT service providers can easily set up secure remote access and hosting environments that actually work.  This includes addressing the printing facilities, user management, app and desktop publishing, workspaces administration, and connection management that makes a remote desktop or app deployment useful. For IT folks, the fact that no special firewall configurations are required and that a static IP address is not needed means that our solution for on-prem can work where many VPNs and web portals can’t.

Remote Desktop services (Terminal services) is the most widely recognized approach for creating “virtual” desktop or hosted application services.  It solves many of the problems involved in centralizing the management and administration of computing resources and applications for broad bases of users, and it’s pretty much the only game in town when it comes to putting traditional desktop applications online (or putting the desktop online).  This approach, which is essentially packing all of the computing requirement into a centralized infrastructure, is the most effective method of addressing the total business requirement (e.g., hosting all the business applications with associated data, administering user security and access, and managing the entire system) at any significant scale.  Each of these methods of providing managed applications require that the entire realm of solutions – the main applications, all integrations, drivers for devices to be supported, and all associated data – exist on the service provider servers and under the service provider’s control.

Our services deliver a simple and straightforward set up so you begin using the platform right away; seamless and affordable.

Joanie Mann Bunny FeetMake Sense?

J

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Mobility Solutions to Support the Booming Home Health Services Market

The market for home health care services is growing rapidly and is not likely to slow any time soon. The expanding need is due in large part to the aging of the baby boomers, those born between 1946 and ‘64.  The boomers were once the nation’s largest living generation, defined by a notable increase in births in the United States following World War II. As this generation ages, it is creating a boom of sorts in the home health services industry.

Roughly 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day, and increasingly these seniors wish to continue living in their own homes rather than being moved to nursing homes or assisted living facilities.   According to AARP, nearly 90 percent of seniors want to stay in their own homes as they age, referred to as “aging in place.” Most seniors (up to 82 percent) would prefer to stay in their homes even as they need daily assistance or ongoing health care.  Few seniors say they would prefer to move to a care facility, and even fewer identify living with extended family as a desirable option.

The rate of home ownership among boomers is higher than with the rest of the population today, which is one of the primary reasons for increased demands for home care services.  Reports reflect that 81% of seniors today own their own homes, compared to 68% for the rest of the population. The majority of these seniors live alone or with a spouse – we’ve already established that living with extended family isn’t a frequent choice, possibly due at least in part to reduced home ownership rates. There are also suggestions that the reduced economic status of later generations has similarly reduced the capacity for extended families providing the long-term care for their seniors.

Projected to double by the year 2050, the number of Americans requiring daily help with living at home is expected to grow from the current 12 million to 27 million.  Older adults will make up almost 20 percent of the population, if not more.

These and other factors are driving rapid growth and expansion in the home health care field. Projected job growth for home health providers and personal care aids is expected to reach a whopping 70 percent by 2020. Larger than any other occupation grouping in the country, direct care workforce is projected to exceed teachers from kindergarten through high school (3.9 million), all law enforce and public safety workers (3.7 million), and registered nurses (3.4 million). Between 2010 and 2020, the fastest growing occupations in the country are projected to be Personal Care Aides and Home Health Aides.

Home health care businesses providing in-home senior care, hospital after-care, veteran care and numerous other specialized and general services are supported by a number of specialized software solutions designed to meet the specific needs of this segment of the healthcare industry.  The software used to support the business generally includes specific functionality for managing client and patient records, caregiver and provider information, scheduling and dispatch, payroll and HR, billing, and other back office and accounting processes.

Many of the industry-specific solutions available on the market address different or unique aspects of operating the home health care business, integrating data from their system with separate accounting and finance applications (such as QuickBooks desktop editions) for the rest of the functionality needed.  This allows the developer of the line of business application to focus on the valuable features and capabilities that will make the practice more efficient, compliant and profitable, leaving general accounting processes (payroll, accounts payable, general ledger and reporting) to the accounting software.

With greater frequency, the applications servicing the home health care industry are SaaS solutions, crafted with online access and mobility in mind.  This industry in particular has a specific need for remote and mobile access to information, as it is a “field service” operation at its core with healthcare rolled in.  The requirements to manage not just scheduling and services, but to deal with compliance, privacy and other factors involved with healthcare information complicates matters, placing an additional focus on the security and mode of access to the software and information.

Businesses using solutions such as Kinnser ADL, Shoshana Rosemark, Kaleida eRSP and Generations Homecare System rely on the software to streamline their operations.  Not only designed to support a remote and mobile workforce, these application services also provide business owners and managers with the ability to access essential business data at any time.  At issue is the rest of the software and systems which support the business operation and its processes.  Word and Excel or other productivity tools are almost certainly used at some level, and QuickBooks is in use, too.  These applications and their data typically reside on the desktop computer or local network.  As desktop applications, these solutions deliver the best power and performance for the business in terms of features and usability.  While some users may consider moving to web-based versions of these products, those who favor performance and functionality over framework often return to the feature-rich desktop applications that do the full job required.

In order to give business owners and remote workers the access they need to desktop applications and data, secure remote access solutions are required.  When the software and systems reside in the locked office of the business, the people operating outside aren’t usually able to access them in a way that is useful – or useful for more than one person at a time.  Remote control solutions that broker access to a PC cannot provide the multi-user support, application security or overall performance that most businesses require.  Attempts to implement simple RDS solutions or use similar products to create access often expose the business to unnecessary risk and limited capability while introducing heavy technical and licensing expenses.

With an offsite option, where the applications and data reside with the commercial hosting provider, business owners and line managers benefit from being allowed to focus on operations and not on managing the underlying software and systems. The business outsources the provisioning, management and protection of primary IT resources to support users, software and data, but the business should retain the capability to administer their own cloud as personnel changes impacting information access can occur at any time.

Whether their software and data are hosted on-site with existing equipment or offsite with managed hosting, home health care businesses need to have an easy-to-use solution for administration of user accounts, application access and secure filespaces.  For the home health care business, this is critical functionality that can mean the difference between spending too much time in the office handling general business and software matters versus meeting with clients and managing caregivers and revenue-generating activities.  In a fast moving, fast growing and highly mobile business, getting to information at anytime from anywhere using any device means being able to meet booming business demand.

Make Sense?

J

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-84.html https://www.ioaging.org/aging-in-america http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/ http://www.iyhusa.com/AginginPlaceFacts-Data.htm http://economistsoutlook.blogs.realtor.org/2012/01/13/homeowners-by-age/
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Channel Partners: Selling Telephony With a Side of Remote Access and Cloud Hosted Applications

Channel agents and telephony resellers are facing stiff competition these days. Line access or voice service isn’t as easy to sell as it once was, and the convergence of digital voice and data has made things even less simple. Business customers demand comprehensive solutions that can address a variety of business problems, and they tend to seek out those solutions from the advisors they trust. The “advisor” could be a software reseller, an accounting professional, the local IT guy, or the professional that delivered great telco, voice or network access.

Convergence isn’t only for voice and data solutions; convergence is the combining and compressing of channels delivering those solutions. MSPs and “pure” IT resellers are also feeling the squeeze, finding telecom agents and channels among those challenging the VARs and MSPs operating today. Marketing budgets are increasing, but differentiation is not.  Reselling is a crowded space and everyone has become a service provider. Having the right messages to win new customers and retain existing ones is essential not just for success, but for survival.

Once a channel partner or provider has established a solid customer relationship, it is important to capitalize on that goodwill (and develop even more) by delivering the other value-added services the customer needs. Access, connectivity and voice solutions are just a start when it comes to servicing small and growing business customers. Having come from an application hosting background, I am very aware of the demand for mobility and “always-on, always-available” computing services among businesses small and large. When the partner is working with the customer and is solving connectivity and telephony problems, the likelihood of successfully selling additional IT solutions to address mobility is quite high. The challenge has often been with the investment required for training and certification; development of new competencies which are viewed as diversions from the core business. Evolution of technology, markets and demand suggests that offering a broader base of solutions isn’t a diversion any longer, it has become a core requirement.

Secure remote access to on-premises systems, managed hosting on cloud servers delivering always-on service or disaster recovery, and collaboration tools that keep everyone on the same page – these are the solutions that savvy businesses are looking for, and which represent the additional value channel partners and service providers could be delivering to their valued customers. After all, if the customer can’t get what they need from their trusted reseller/advisor, they will find somewhere else to buy, removing their “advisor” from the mix. Most business owners would agree that it takes less to nurture and maintain existing customers than it takes to find new ones, so the investment in offering and delivering value-added solutions is well worth it.

The best way for channel partners to retain their customer relationships is to offer a full range of solutions and value-added services to meet the variety of needs of their business clientele.  MyQuickCloud, for example, is a highly successful partner solution and add-on for resellers of IP telephony services and line access. MyQuickCloud offers very flexible and affordable secure remote access and cloud hosting solutions that do not require investments in training or certification to resell, giving channel partners and telecomm agents the right stuff to beat out the competition and keep small business and growing enterprise customers happy and coming back for more. Partners leverage their expertise and creativity in developing solutions with MyQuickCloud, resulting in cost-effective and powerful network, application and continuity services not previously available.

MyQuickCloud secure remote access creates a secure business cloud from on-premises systems, with hosted or co-located cloud servers, or any combination of on-prem or offsite hosts. The on-premises capability leverages investments in existing infrastructure and adds value and capability to locally installed systems, a benefit which is not available with traditional hosting models. Able to be positioned as simple remote access, managed hosting or complete disaster recovery, MyQuickCloud gives channel partners a simple yet comprehensive approach to meeting customer computing needs regardless of the applications in use or mobile devices to support. MyQuickCloud is also used by installers and support technicians, enabling remote access to client on-prem systems, turning service and support into a more streamlined and efficient effort and improving customer service and retention.

I wrote an article a while back about how it all comes down to 3 applications for small businesses… applications to address fundamental business requirements. Among those requirements is the need to communicate.  Whether it be via voice or electronic mail or other means, every business communicates and every business needs communication tools.  Chief among the communication tools is the voice service (telephone), whether it be on-premises or hosted, digital voice or IP (not much analog out there anymore) or some combination of all of the above. Extending telephone systems to service a remote and mobile workforce or to connect multiple business locations is a high demand business and has proven to be very lucrative for many partners.  Adding value to these solutions by delivering remote access or hosting service simply increases the overall value of the system and allows business customers to take full advantage of mobile, connected and integrated working models.

Make Sense?

J

 

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Hosting QuickBooks Desktop Editions – The Good and the Bad – Accountex Report

published on Sleeter.com blog, now Accountex Report, January 22, 2013. This is an oldie but a goodie… perhaps more relevant now than ever.

With the accounting industry moving towards cloud computing and fully online working models, users of Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions may believe that their best option is to migrate to a web-based edition of the software rather than continuing to use the version of QuickBooks they have come to rely on. While QuickBooks Online Edition may seem like the best option for anytime, anywhere access to financial applications and data, it might not provide the functionality or features that QuickBooks desktop edition users need. When the business needs the full capability of the desktop edition product, hosting that solution with an application hosting service provider may be the right answer.

“Hosting” QuickBooks desktop editions means that a hosting service provider installs and manages the QuickBooks software and the company data files on their own cloud-based servers. Users don’t have to install QuickBooks on their PC, because they use the Internet to connect to their QuickBooks software and company data hosted by the service provider. Whether the service is accessed by clicking on an icon on the local PC desktop or by logging in via a web page or portal, the underlying technology is still Windows and QuickBooks.

Continue reading Hosting QuickBooks Desktop Editions – The Good and the Bad – Accountex Report

check out MyQuickCloud for QuickBooks Remote Access and Managed Cloud Hosting
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What we’ve learned about desktop and application hosting for small businesses

Application hosting is pretty popular these days, and a lot of that popularity can be attributed to the proliferation of web-based and SaaS solutions that have clearly revealed the benefits of mobility and managed service.  Not everyone wants to or can use a web-based application, however, causing demand for hosting of desktop applications to grow.  Take a look at what’s going on with Intuit QuickBooks, for example.  With all the push to QuickBooks Online, Intuit has created a surge in the demand for hosted QuickBooks desktop editions.  Folks want their QuickBooks available for remote access and to support multiple users from different locations… but they also want to continue to use the feature-rich QuickBooks desktop products their businesses rely on.  Hosting lets them have their cake and eat it, too.  It’s the best of both worlds.

Back in 2000, there were a few in the tech industry that said the desktop would be dead soon.  Business users wouldn’t be sitting down to work at computers, they would be using various devices to access their applications and data, from anywhere.  Those early visionaries recognized that mobility was the coming thing, and that even the smallest of businesses would need what was at the time enterprise-class technology. I wasn’t so sure about the potential death of the desktop and the beloved applications businesses love to use, but I was pretty certain that “working online” with centrally-managed systems was the thing to work toward.

A lot of hosting companies started up at that time, and a lot of them went out of business just a few years later – some in virtual flames.  Customers lost time, productivity, and in some cases their data.  Investors lost their investments.  It wasn’t that the service providers weren’t doing a good job, or that the technology wasn’t quite up to the task – the problem was the hype and the money.  Too many people sat on the sales-side of the technology, making promises they couldn’t deliver and coming up short in meeting investor and customer demands.

Quite a number of years have gone by, and the market is still rife with promises unkept and solutions undelivered.  But some of us in the industry have learned a lot over the years, so I’d like to share some of that learning.

Application hosting services gained popularity because they solved some major problems for businesses and their collaborators (including accountants, bookkeepers, remote workers, etc.).

Hosted application services allow everyone to work on the same software and data, regardless of where the user is located. Hosted application services provide centralized access for businesses with multiple locations or mobile workers.  And hosted application services make it easier for contracted or engaged professionals like accountants and bookkeepers to work closer with their clients.

In the beginning, when we were just launching these hosting services, the equipment, facilities and expansive engineering labor requirements were really expensive so there was tremendous pressure to find ways to keep costs down.  For customers, the plan was to pack as many users into the environment as possible, with volume representing a way to get a lower per-user cost.  This concept paved the way for the accountant cloud server model, where it was suggested that an accounting firm could bring all their clients onto the cloud server to help keep the costs down.  For a while that model worked pretty well, but then some issues started to be revealed.

With small business application hosting, particularly when dealing with QuickBooks, it should be recognized that nobody uses just QuickBooks.

There’s almost always a plug-in or add-on or some other solution that is also required with QuickBooks. Taking payments in QuickBooks requires a 3rd party plugin if you aren’t going to use Intuit payment solutions.  Downloading payroll data from another service may also require a plugin, as does the tax add-on and the order sync tool and the solution that integrates orders from the website or via EDI from vendors or suppliers.  It is almost never just QuickBooks.  When a provider tries to pack all that customization into a single server and serve a whole lot of different business, each with their own needs – things go a bit sideways.  Servers hang, customer applications interfere with one another, and data gets compromised.

The next phase then was either VDI or dedicated service.  VDI was and continues to be too expensive and complex when you have to factor in database engines, shared storage and such.  Dedicated service (server) is a bit more straightforward and still has some economy of scale.  With this model, each customer gets what they need.  They’re still in a cloud-hosted environment so collaboration isn’t a problem, and every customer has the benefit of working with exactly the software solutions they need for their particular business.  The challenge is serving just a few users.  Even though cloud servers can be relatively affordable to get these days, it may still be too costly for one- or two-user situations. (Note that these are the folks that often find themselves compelled to try the online, web version of an application simply due to cost.)

The customized cloud delivery is the right concept, but many service providers still have problems supporting multiple applications for customers and often charge quite a bit extra while delivering a marginal level of service.  You may find a provider who will try to deliver any application for you (and many will do that poorly) or you may find a popular provider that can only offer a particular set of applications for hosting.  If the provider isn’t able to deliver the applications the business needs, or if they are unable to deliver custom or personalized service, then they are likely not the right provider for the business.

The emergence of public cloud services like AWS should make it easier for small businesses to get affordable computing power and customized cloud service from any IT provider, but it hasn’t yet. 

The public cloud is still far too complicated for most small businesses to navigate or even get started with.  Truthfully, it is difficult for many IT resellers and partners to navigate, too.  Getting started is potentially costly in terms of time and resources especially for service providers, so those costs and complications end up reaching through to the customer.  The public cloud just isn’t ready for the average small business to take advantage of directly, so on-premises servers or managed cloud server hosting are still the most viable options.

A big wrinkle in the whole hosted online application model is that many businesses don’t really need or want to completely outsource their IT to a cloud provider.

Considerations relating to privacy and proximity are paramount for many business owners, not to mention the trust factor.  Lawyers, accounts, manufacturers… business owners in any industry may be uncomfortable considering moving their systems and information out of their immediate control.  There could be regulatory concerns or logistical challenges, or it could be something as simple as realizing that there remain applications or data on computers on-premises that make an outsourced hosting approach more complicated and costly while delivering only a partial solution.  Whatever the reasons, there remains a lot of in-house IT and that’s OK.

There is no doubt that business owners and their team members need and want mobility and secure remote access.  They also want to work with the IT providers they trust and maybe they even want to continue working from servers they have already contracted for or purchased. Others may wish to leverage cloud platforms, but remain closely associated with their IT providers.

Forcing a business owner to migrate their systems to a hosting platform when all they really want is remote access or multi-user service seems a bit like overkill.

Granted, there are many benefits to be derived from outsourcing IT management and administration, like improved focus on the business, and various business processes and workflows could be more streamlined with a centrally-managed and fully accessible solution.  Yet those benefits are the intangibles that businesses must discover after-the-fact, and are achieved only if the business works specifically towards those goals.  In short, it isn’t necessarily what business owners are buying.

If we have learned nothing else over the years it is that things don’t move as quickly as we’d like them to.

The world never seems to end before your homework is due.

Software-as-a-Service hasn’t completely killed off desktop software, and smartphones and tablets haven’t ended the useful life of the desktop computer.   What they have done is fully expose the desire and need for mobility and access, and have opened the doors for tools to address those needs better than the other approaches previously available.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

 

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Big Data, Analysis and Business Intelligence

Big Data, Analysis and Business Intelligence

big dataThere is a lot of talk among IT professionals of “big data”, and discussions at many business conference tables center on how the organization might find greater benefit and advantage from the intelligence buried in the business systems and information.  It is a two-part problem, where the collection and the analysis each play essential roles in developing real business intelligence.

“So what’s getting ubiquitous and cheap? Data.

And what is complementary to data? Analysis. ..”

Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google and emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley
“Hal Varian Answers Your Questions,” February 25, 2008 (http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/02/25/hal-varian-answers-your-questions/).  BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYTICS: FROM BIG DATA TO BIG IMPACT; MIS Quarterly Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 1165-1188/December 2012

The information technology and systems in a business support the operation.  Software and computers help people do their jobs, and the information collected in and generated by those systems becomes the foundation for developing business “intelligence”.   Today, businesses must reach beyond their own direct operational support systems and consider the full realm of data to be collected, including IoT sensor data or social media data.

Business intelligence is gained from the analysis of the critical business data – analysis which helps owners and managers make better and more informed decisions which are based on an understanding of the business and market.   Business intelligence was a term popularized in the 1990s, but the key was the analytical component (business analytics), which gained focus in the late 2000s. Today it is big data and big data analytics, where organizations are working with massive data sets not previously even imagined.

“…one of the most significant challenges facing enterprise IT teams today is how to efficiently support and enable the “science” of big data, while providing the confidence and maturity of more traditional (and often better understood) infrastructure services.”

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/05/26/hadoop-big-data-storage-challenge-overcoming-science-project/

The volume and velocity of information collection is ever-increasing even in the smallest of businesses, creating a great need for tools which can structure and correlate data so that it might render some insight.  Simply storing and managing these huge and growing data sets has become a challenge, and there isn’t one right way.

Once the business has the data, then it must find a way to analyze the data, which generally involves also applying visualization tools. Many IT departments are feeling pressured in the development of new skills and capabilities around data collection and management, yet it is more frequently the business user who provides the analysis and applies visualization tools to the task.

“Data collected by the Aberdeen Group, found that employees in organizations that used visual data discovery were more likely to find the information they need, when they need it. These same companies were able to scale their use of scarce IT skills more effectively.”

http://www.tableau.com/learn/whitepapers/visualization-set-your-analytics-users-free#0vXrkWZbizxyutw

The use of business intelligence and advanced analytics continues to grow in every segment of the market – from small business to enterprise – and plays an increasingly important role in supporting business success.

Until this point, most businesses didn’t have the technology or the data to enable significant quality or business transformation, but the times are changing and deployments of data collection, analysis and visualization software and tools are expanding with it. This is a fundamental aspect of business digital transformation and fuels the next step, where intelligence is applied to conditions revealed in the data and activities are automatically performed guided by that intelligence.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J